^{All I do, I can still feel you...}

Mood: Destroyed
Listening to: Something's Burning by 12Rounds
Reading: In the Land of White Death
Watching: Way of the Gun

I find myself constantly resisting the digital medium. Lately I've been attempting to determine why.

I've deduced it to a number of reasons, the primary being the fact that I simply don't want digital art to assimilate classic, hand-made works. A smaller reason is the fact that, now that digital has been made so easy and user-friendly, it seems more talentless than it has ever been and is far more wide-spread. While in some ways it is good that art is more approachable and doable than ever, it is worse in other ways. For every one excellent painter or sketch artist there are twenty digital "artists," and maybe (MAYBE) one of those digital artists is worth looking at. Digital art has become the layman's widespread version of something that should be unique and special.

So I use a standard 35mm film cameras, with lenses of all sizes and filters of all types, I paint with a tangible brush that I can hold between my fingers, and I draw with a wooden pencil. I've decided that I prefer these. Yes, I have a couple digital cameras, including a "prosumer" digital Rebel, and yes I know Photoshop like the back of my hand, and yes I can make a detailed digital painting (given enough time), but I don't always want to. In today's world, I think a true old-fashioned, by-hand artist is valued a bit more than a digital artist, and always will be.

How can you possibly compare a bamboo and camel-hair paintbrush to a plastic and metal mouse? They are of different worlds entirely and I understand that traditional art and digital art will never be on the same page. But take DeviantArt for example: There is easily eight times as many digital artists on DA than traditional artists, and nearly every digital artist is piss-poor and doesn't deserve the title. Meanwhile, if you manage to find a painter daring to put his/her stuff up on DA, it's generally pretty impressive. However, this isn't certain, either.

It's all a toss-up in the end, and I know it. But for me, there's just something about popping open a film canister and having that familiar chemical smell hit my nose that I just don't get with digital, and never will. And the pen tool will never replace my actual pen. I embrace digital art with open arms and strive to excell in all fields of digital art, loving most of the aspects of it, but I love my paper and pencil.

^{...and I control you.}